Appendix:English words containing Q not followed by U

In English, the letter q is usually followed by the letter u. While this is true in the vast majority of cases, there are some exceptions, the majority of which are romanised from Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Inuktitut, or other languages which do not use the English alphabet, with q representing a sound not found in English. For example, in the Chinese pinyin alphabet, qi is pronounced /tʃi/, as pinyin uses ‹q› to represent the sound [tɕʰ], which is approximated as [tʃ] in English. In other examples, q represents [q] (in standard Arabic, such as in qat, faqir and Qur'ān, and alternative spellings are sometimes accepted which use k in place of q).

Almost all of these words are nouns, and most would generally be considered loanwords. However, they are all considered to be naturalised in English according to at least one major dictionary (see References), often because they refer to concepts or societal roles that do not have an accurate equivalent in English. For words to appear here, they must appear in their own entry in a dictionary; words which occur only as part of a longer phrase are not included.

In addition, there are many place names and personal names, mostly originating from North Africa, the Middle East or China, that have a q without a u. The most familiar of these are the countries of Iraq and Qatar, along with the derived words Iraqi and Qatari. Iqaluit, the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, also has a q which is not directly followed by a u. Qaqortoq, in Greenland, is notable for having three naked qs. Other proper names and acronyms that have attained the status of English words include: Compaq (a computer company), Qantas (an Australian airline), Nasdaq (the US electronic stock market) and QinetiQ (a British technology company). Zaqqum (a tree mentioned in the Qur'an) and Saqqara are proper nouns notable for their use of a double q. However, the nouns in this list are common nouns.

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Unless noted otherwise all words listed here are assumed to be pluralized by adding -s or -es. References in the "Sources" column relate to the headword in column one; variant spellings are then separately referenced. The sources given are selective, and the absence of a reference to a particular dictionary does not necessarily mean that the word does not appear in that dictionary.

In many word games, most famously in Scrabble, a player must build a word using a certain set of letters. Therefore, if a player is obliged to use a Q but does not have a U, it may be useful to construct words from this list. In Scrabble in North America, the only acceptable words with a Q and not a U are qi, qat, qaid, qai, qadi, qoph, qanat, tranq, faqir, sheqel, qabala, qabalah, qindar, qintar, qindarka, mbaqanga, and qwerty, along with their plurals (such as qats and sheqalim).[ TWL ] Other words in this list, such as suq and qiviut, are also acceptable, but since these contain a U, they are less likely to be useful.